Traffic police in Ho Chi Minh City have started investigating a case in which an officer was filmed fighting with a local man earlier this month, Tuoi Tre reported Wednesday.

According to Tuoi Tre, the clip of more than one minute length was uploaded to the internet Tuesday. Second lieutenant Trinh Hong Giang and lieutenant-colonel Doan Van Nhan, both officers of HCMC's road and railway traffic police division (PC67), have been asked to report on the case.

They were also ordered to review their actions for not reporting the case to their senior office immediately after it happened on September 4, the newspaper quoted Tran Thanh Tra, deputy chief of PC67, as saying.

According to Tra, in their reports, Giang and Nhan said that they were on duty along a section of National Way 1A in the southern province of Binh Duong when Nguyen Quang Thanh approached them.

Thanh, who lives in HCMC's District 9, then pointed his finger at Giang, abusing him verbally and attacking him, the officers reported.

In response to Thanh's actions, Giang phyisically controlled the man and informed local police, asking them to handle the case.

However, because Thanh's wife then came to apologize Giang, the officer agreed to release him on consideration that he was drunk, Tuoi Tre reported, adding that Giang didn't report it to his senior, either.

Meanwhile, Thanh said that he had approached the traffic officers because a traffic officer had hit his hand with a club when he was driving with his wife and child on a motorbike.

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Thanh then stopped his bike some 150 meters from the location where he was hit, leaving his wife and child there, to approach Giang, who he thought was the officer that had hit him.

But, when Thanh's wife came to interfere in the fight, she confirmed that Giang wasn't the officer, so Thanh and his family apologized to him, according to the man's report.

On the other hand, some people accused that Giang of failing to act properly in response to Thanh's abuse.

News website VTC News quoted lawyer Vu Van Dang, member of the Bar Association in the northern province of Thai Binh, as saying that there were "problems" with Giang's actions.

The clip showed very clearly that with bigger body, the officer kept attacking the Thanh, striking him down two times, although the latter couldn't defend himself. The clip also showed Nhan trying to stop Giang, the lawyer said.